


real or not real

by pieandsouffles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Feelings, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffles/pseuds/pieandsouffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: 5 times Bucky's memories were real and the one time Steve thought they weren't but it worked out in the end</p>
            </blockquote>





	real or not real

**Author's Note:**

> I literally wrote this in one sitting. I neglected my other fic to basically vomit feelings onto a word document. I am so sorry. Inspired by my own post-catws text post, the hunger games, and my own feelings after watching this dumb movie and reading all the fic there is to read about this dumb ship.

**I.**

“Steve, if he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.  You know that, just as well as I do.” 

A map is spread on Sam’s kitchen table, its glossy surface punctuated with thumbtacks.  They glow crimson in the low light of the room; it is after midnight, and Steve presses another tack into a spot along the southeastern border of Manitoba and Ontario. 

“I can’t stop looking,” Steve says, fingers curling into a fist.  “I just – how can I, Sam?  He saved my life.  He remembered me.” 

“Maybe he did,” Sam says, leaning heavily on the counter and pouring himself a cup of coffee.  “But you can’t keep chasing a ghost.  You got to think about yourself.  Look at what this is doing to you, Rogers.” 

Steve rubs absently at a spot of dried blood on his right thumb.  “How can I think about myself, when they’re still out there?  Those,” he hesitates, “ _monsters_ that did this to him.  I have to do something, Sam.  And if blowing up HYDRA bases is all I can do, then so be it.” 

Sam sighs and passes Steve a mug of coffee.  “What would he say, if he saw you like this?  Spattered in other men’s blood, killing to avenge him?  Would he have wanted this for you?” 

“I…” Steve stops. 

_Do you want to kill Nazis?_

_I don’t want to kill anyone.  I don’t like bullies; I don’t care where they’re from._

But that isn’t him, not anymore.  He has never felt bloodlust like what he’s been feeling the past two months.  Never felt joy when he pulls a trigger.

“Get out of D.C., Steve.  Get away from it.  You keep hanging around here like he’s gonna come back.  You have to move on.” 

Steve meets Sam’s eyes for the first time since they rushed the base together earlier that day.  “I’ve never had a hard time making decisions – in war, with anything, figuring out what’s right or wrong.  But this, Sam… with him… it’s like everything’s a hundred different types of gray.  I can’t tell up from down anymore.” 

“Hate to break it to you, Cap, but very few things are black and white anymore.  Morality isn’t as clear-cut as it maybe was back in your time.  But war, in particular, never allows for absolutes.  It’s not supposed to be easy, Steve.  It’s dirty and fucked up and you’re never gonna get a straight answer.” 

Steve downs half his coffee.  It scorches the roof of his mouth and the tip of his tongue, but the pain barely registers.  His body feels numb. 

“Do you think he remembers New York?  Brooklyn?” he whispers. 

“I don’t have the first idea what goes on in his head,” Sam said.  “But you gotta start somewhere.  At some point, you gotta start to heal.” 

\---

He dreams of falling.  There is a man, in his dreams – the man on the helicarrier, still wearing red, white, and blue.  He dreams of a shield, circular, of ducking behind it, bullets ricocheting off the front.  He knows it is the same shield wielded by the man on the helicarrier.  He recognizes its craftsmanship – vibranium, designed by Howard Stark. 

He remembers a car, a well-placed shot through a windshield.  He completed that mission. 

The man on the helicarrier was his mission.  He knows this.  He not only failed to complete the mission, he saved the target.  He pulled the target out of the Potomac River, left him on the shore, and fled the scene. 

He dreams of falling.  He dreams of fingers, stretched towards his own, but never quite touching.  He dreams of the wind rushing past his face, of the harsh impact of ice and snow.

He watches the target as he hides in the shadows of an alleyway.  He has stolen a hooded sweatshirt and jeans from a nearby apartment with an open window, and his metal arm is covered, hand buried in the jeans’ front pocket.  The target must not know he is here.  He must complete his mission, and report to the nearest safe house.  The target is barely visible around his curtains, but the Soldier knows the man on the helicarrier is distracted, preparing a meal. 

_He looks sad._

The Soldier does not know where the thought came from.  He does not experience fear, remorse, pain.  He is a weapon.  He takes a step back, deeper into the alley, losing himself in the shadows. 

He takes quick stock of his surroundings – no nearby implements that could be used as weapons, no other people, no witnesses.  He moves to remove his pistol from where it is strapped to his ankle, and pauses.  He knows this alley.  He has seen it before.  He does not remember it. 

_He is walking down the street in the late afternoon.  It is hot outside, unusual for Brooklyn, and he is thinking about how much he would kill for an ice cream when he hears shouting coming from around a corner._

_“Come on, Rogers, can’t fight back?”_

_He hears a sound like a fist hitting too-fragile skin, and starts to walk faster._

_“I could – I could do this all day,” and this voice is high-pitched and young, probably his age, and he starts running.  He doesn’t like it when people pick on kids that can’t defend themselves._

_He rounds the edge of an alley and sees a boy, probably eight or nine, struggling to stand up as another kid looms over him.  The boy’s hair is blond, and it flops down over his thin face, his cheekbones making shadows in the afternoon sun.  The bully throws another punch._

_“What, you gettin’ tired?” the boy asks, even as blood streams from his nose and starts to trickle from a split lip._

_“Hey, you!” he says, finally finding his voice.  The bully turns, and he hesitates.  He knows the kid – Brendan O’Brien, he thinks.  “Why don’t you fight someone your own size?  Does it make you happy, beating up a guy like that?”_

_Brendan’s face grows dark and he takes a swing.  He retaliates with a solid right hook, and Brendan scrams._

_“Hey, you okay?” he asks, running up to the boy, who’s tentatively touching his lip and nose._

_“I’ve had worse,” he says bravely.  “You didn’t have to do that.”_

_“’Course I did,” he says, grinning.  “I don’t like bullies.”_

_“I’m Steve,” the kid says, holding out his hand.  “Steve Rogers.”_

_He takes it._

_“I’m Bucky.  Bucky Barnes.”_

The Soldier is shaking on the damp cement of the alley, arms hugging his legs.  He knows the man on the helicarrier.  Steve Rogers is the man in the Smithsonian.  The target knew Bucky Barnes.  And the Soldier – the Soldier cannot quite believe it, because the man in the pictures at the museum, the man wearing his face – the man who knew the target – is him. 

The Soldier was once Bucky Barnes.  He had met the target in an alley not unlike the one in which he is standing.  The Soldier has killed people in an alley not unlike the one in which he is standing – he slit a man’s throat, blood spattering the walls, in Zagreb.  He remembers.  And he remembers the target – the man on the helicarrier, the boy in the alley, Captain America, his mission. 

The Soldier tucks the gun back into its holster and crosses the street.  He climbs the front of the building – it is not high – finding footholds in the antiquated brick.  His metal hand digs pieces out of the façade. 

He drops onto the floor of the living room, and his boots make a dull _thud_ on the floor.  His target freezes at the stove, and slowly – so, so slowly – turns around. 

\---

“Bucky,” he breathes, and he knows he probably sounds like he’s praying, but that’s what it is.  Bucky Barnes is standing stiffly in his living room, gray sweatshirt drawn around him like body armor, hood drawn to disguise his hair.  Steve sees the way he holds his metal arm: awkwardly, like it weighs a ton, or like it’s causing him pain.  It makes his chest ache. 

Bucky tilts his head, just slightly, to the left.  “Am I?” His voice is raspy, raw with disuse and Steve wants nothing more than to gather Bucky into his arms, to hold him there and make sure he can’t ever leave him again. 

Instead, he just says, “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and I’m Steven Grant Rogers.  We knew each other, before.” 

He watches Bucky tense, and takes mental stock of all his weapons.  There’s a gun hidden behind the toaster, and his shield is propped against the counter, only a few feet away – he can get to it if he needs to, he thinks. 

“I know you,” Bucky says.  His tone is disbelieving.  “They – they took everything.  But I know you.  Why?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, because it’s all he can think to say.  He doesn’t know why he seemed to be the catalyst to breaking through Bucky’s programming.  He can’t believe he’s even thinking about Bucky that way – as a machine, as something programmable.  It makes him feel ill. 

“I remember-” Bucky begins, but then snaps his mouth shut. 

Steve sets down the spoon upon whose handle he had accidentally been molding the shape of his fingers.  “You remember things?”

Bucky nods.  He still looks so uncomfortable, so cold. 

“Would you like some dinner?” Steve asks, gesturing towards the simmering pot on the stove.  “It’s about finished, and I’ve got plenty.” 

Bucky hesitates, and Steve notes, distantly, that he looks frail, as if he hasn’t eaten properly in weeks. 

“Please.  Come eat,” Steve pleads, and his voice cracks on the last word. 

Bucky walks forward like he’s been ordered to do so, and the sadness that lies deep in Steve’s bones is flushed out almost immediately by anger – is this what HYDRA reduced him to?  A puppet?  Only able to follow direct orders, never to choose for himself? 

Steve ladles soup into bowls and returns to the kitchen island, where Bucky has sat down hesitantly on the edge of a stool. 

“Here,” Steve says, gently sliding one of the bowls and a spoon across to Bucky. 

Bucky stares at him, expression blank and terrifying. 

“I remember – some things.  I can’t.  I don’t.”

Steve realizes he is struggling to find words.  Bucky, who had always been the sweet talker, the suave member of their duo.  The anger is reinforced with sorrow, and he feels bloodlust rush through him again, an insatiable desire to eradicate HYDRA from the face of the earth. 

“You don’t what?”

“I’m not sure.  If they’re… real,” Bucky says at last, and his expression is pained, like the words have cost him a great effort. 

“Okay,” Steve says slowly, taking a careful bite of soup, never letting his eyes leave Bucky.  “Okay.  Why don’t we play a game, then?”

“Game?” Bucky repeats slowly.  The word sounds foreign on his tongue. 

“Yeah.  You tell me a memory.  I’ll tell you if it’s real or not.  Any time you remember something you aren’t sure of.”

“A game,” Bucky says again, and this time the words are solid weights dripping from his mouth. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, taking another bite of soup. 

Bucky seems to recall that there is food in front of him, and he begins to shovel soup into his mouth with an urgency that leaves Steve heartbroken.  When Bucky has used the last of his bread to soak up the rest of the broth from the bottom of the bowl, Steve gives him seconds.  And thirds. 

Steve is working on his second when Bucky says, “I remember an alley.  It was warm.  There was sun.  You were – small.  And there was another kid there.  He punched him.  You told him your name.”   

Steve is certain metal spoons aren’t meant to withstand this sort of pressure, and forces himself to relax his grip, which had tightened at Bucky’s words – the way Bucky had spoken about himself in the third person, as if he weren’t worthy to bear the name of James Barnes.  “Real.  That,” he swallows, “that’s the day we met.”

Bucky nods.  “I remember falling.” 

Steve’s breath catches, and it feels like all the oxygen has been sucked from the room.    

“I remember – you were there.  You were reaching for him.” 

“Bucky-”

“Don’t call me that!” Bucky shouts, on his feet in a blur of motion Steve can’t quite catch.  “Is it real or not?”

Steve counts to five, makes the air enter and leave his lungs.  “Yeah.  Yeah, it is.” 

“I’m not him,” Bucky says, and his voice is colored with melancholy, anger, resentment.  Cold, hard fury.  “I’m not.  I remember – other things.  Kills.  Dozens of them.” 

Steve looks at him, eyes imploring.  “You can’t blame yourself for those-”

“I almost killed you,” Bucky interrupts.  “Real or not real?”

Steve is at a loss for words. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and moves towards the window. 

“Wait!” Steve calls out, suddenly desperate.  Bucky can’t go.  Not when Steve’s just found him again.  “Please – stay.” 

“I’m dangerous.” 

“You saved my life.” 

Bucky closes his eyes, briefly, like he can’t believe how stupid Steve’s being, and it sends a shard of glass through Steve’s heart – he recognizes that expression, has seen it so many times before. 

“I came here to kill you.”  Bucky bends down and rolls up the bottom of his jeans to reveal a pistol and two knives.  “I am not the man you remember.  We share a face.  Nothing more.” 

“But you didn’t,” Steve says desperately.  “You made a different call.  Please.  Let me help.” 

“Nobody can help me, Rogers,” he says.  “Not anymore.” 

“Maybe you’ve forgotten,” Steve says, taking a tentative step closer, “but I’ll always be here.  I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” 

 

**II.**

The Winter Soldier sleeps in the target’s room that night.  He sinks into sheets that are too clean, into a mattress that is too soft, and he tries to remind himself that HYDRA is not coming for him.  HYDRA is gone.  They will not take him back.  They meant for him to die on the helicarrier, but he is not dead.  He is alive, and they are gone. 

He smells the target all around him.  He knows the smell, and he wishes he could remember it.  The Soldier pauses.  He does not want.  Weapons are not meant to have desires. 

He removes his sweatshirt and crosses to the target’s dresser; his metal arm whirrs and pings in pain with the small action, and he is vaguely aware that he must have it looked at. The pain will only increase if it is not maintained.  He searches through the target’s drawers until he finds a plain gray shirt.  He tugs it on over his chest, mangled with raised, crisscrossing scars.  He sheds his jeans and pulls on a pair of the target’s sweatpants.  They bear the SHIELD logo on the left leg. 

Wearing the target’s clothes feels familiar.  He does not remember ever doing so before. 

He lays back down, and

_it is winter of 1938.  Their apartment is cold, so cold, and they were late on the heating bill last month because Steve got sick with pneumonia and Bucky lost his job looking after him.  Bucky still feels sick when he remembers the way Steve shuddered with fever, was too weak to rise from his bed.  Bucky had thought he might lose Steve, and the thought had been terrifying._

_It is winter, and it is cold, and Steve is huddled under too-thin blankets, curled up on his side and shivering as he tries to conserve heat.  Steve is skin and bones, and Bucky wishes he could make enough money for Steve to eat well enough to put on some weight.  Bucky has lost ten pounds in the last two weeks – he continues to give Steve more food at dinner, even when he protests.  The kid needs it._

_Bucky watches Steve from the door of the bedroom, hesitating, worried sick that Steve will get too cold, that he’ll get sick again.  There’s something in his chest, a concern that’s almost painful, like nothing he’s ever felt.  Slowly, so, so, slowly, he crosses the room and gets into bed behind Steve._

_“Buck?” Steve’s voice is small, half-asleep as Bucky wraps an arm around his frail waist, pulling the covers up to their chins._

_“Shh, Stevie.  Go back to bed,” Bucky says, praying Steve won’t take it the wrong way._

_The shivering slows.  “You’re warm.”_

_“Yeah, you looked a bit cold,” Bucky whispers into Steve’s ear, and he can almost feel Steve smiling._

_“Thanks, Buck,” Steve murmurs, squirming back into Bucky’s chest, trying to minimize the space between their bodies.  Bucky lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and grins into the skin of Steve’s neck._

_“Anything, pal.”_

The Soldier is crying, clutching at the immaculate sheets and he can’t remember the last time he cried, can’t remember anything beyond the kills and the knives and the needles jabbing into his skin and the chair where they placed him before wiping his memories and the ice and the cold

“Bucky!” the target says, standing just inside the doorway. 

The Soldier is across the floor and in a defensive crouch by the window before he realizes his actions, before the target – no, _Steve_ – can move. 

“I-” the Soldier can’t speak, he can’t look at the man standing in front of him, because then Steve will know what he’s lost. 

“Did you have a nightmare?” Steve asks, and his words are cautious. 

“Memory,” the Soldier says, letting his muscles relax one at a time.  He drops the knife he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

“Was it bad?” 

“I – it was winter.  1938.  You were shivering.  He…”

“ _You_ ,” Steve says, and he’s crossing the room.  “You, Bucky.  You kept me warm, because we didn’t have heating that month, since you had to stay home and take care of me when I had pneumonia.  I was sick all the time, and whenever I was cold after that, you’d crawl into bed with me, just to keep me warm.” 

He reaches a hand out, slowly enough that the Soldier has time to pull away.  He doesn’t, and the hand comes to rest on the Soldier’s metal shoulder, covering the star. 

“It’s real, and it’s you, Buck.  And you’re more than whatever it is you think you are.  You’re more than this.” 

“Steve?” Bucky chokes out, and Steve starts to cry, and they’re both sobbing together on the floor of Steve’s bedroom in the middle of the night. 

“Yeah, Buck,” he says, gathering Bucky into his arms.  “Yeah.  It’s me.  I’m right here.  And I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Stay with me tonight?” Bucky asked, feeling weak.  He did not want to ask for help.  The Soldier would not have asked for help.  “Nightmares.”

“Okay,” Steve said.  “Okay.” 

 

**III.**

Bucky remembers things in pieces. 

The first week they are together, he does not talk much beyond asking Steve questions about his memories.  They’re usually small things about the games they used to play as children, or the names of dames Bucky dated.  Every time Bucky asks, Steve feels like his heart’s about to burst.  Every memory is a step forward.   

There are setbacks.  They share the bed after the disastrous first night, and on the second night, Steve wakes up to Bucky’s metal fingers wrapped around his throat. 

“Bucky!” he manages to gasp, and then the grip is loosening, humanity coming back to Bucky’s eyes. 

“Steve?” he asks, ripping his hand away from Steve’s throat.  “I – oh my god, I almost-”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, grasping Bucky’s metal hand and massaging the fingers.  “You didn’t.”

“I should-” Bucky says, moving as if to leave the bed, but Steve catches his wrist. 

“Hey, it’s okay.  You didn’t.  You remembered.” 

Bucky nods and rests his forehead on Steve’s chest.  “Sometimes I dream that I really did it.” 

“Did what?” Steve asks, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair. 

“Killed you.” 

On those nights, Steve pulls Bucky a little closer to him, and neither of them sleep well.

They are eating Thai on the third night when Bucky pauses mid-bite and stares at Steve with an intensity bordering on too-much. 

“I remember you, on a bench in Central Park.  He’d – _I’d_ taken us to the city.  You were sketching pigeons.” 

“Real,” Steve says, smiling.  “You bought us hot dogs.  It was nice, getting away from Brooklyn.  You used to love watching me draw.” 

Bucky’s face grows shadowed, withdrawn, and Steve recognizes his mistake – confirm the memory, don’t compare the Bucky he knows now to the one he knew before HDYRA, before the war. 

“Sorry,” Steve says quietly.  “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Bucky sets down his container and retreats to the bedroom.  When Steve enters later, tentative and wondering if he should just sleep on the couch, Bucky is awake and waiting for him, the blankets pulled down on Steve’s side of the bed.  Steve climbs under the covers and falls asleep to the sound of Bucky’s breathing. 

He calls Sam on day eight. 

“Cap!  What’s happening?”

Bucky is still sleeping in the bedroom, but Steve lowers his voice anyway.  “He found me, Sam.”

There is silence at the other end, and then a very wary, “Is everything all right?’’

“More than.  He’s remembering.  Slowly, but… it’s there.” 

“How do you know he’s not a sleeper agent?” 

“Sam, it’s Bucky.  Trust me.  I know him.” 

“The man you are currently harboring is not the man you knew before the war, Rogers.  You haven’t considered the possibility that this could be some ruse, designed to lower your guard?” 

Steve thinks about the nights Bucky wakes up screaming, the ones where he wakes up with Bucky’s hand around his throat, how Bucky is able to wrench his fingers away. 

“I’ve considered it.  And I’ve disregarded it.” 

“Have you thought about bringing him to SHIELD?” 

Steve fights back a wave of anger.  “I’m not taking him anywhere until he’s ready to go of his own free will.”

“Your call, Cap.  I have to go – VA meeting.  Keep in touch.”

“Will do.” 

Steve turns to find Bucky in the entryway to the kitchen.  He has his arms crossed over his chest, exuding a forced casualness that has Steve instantly on edge. 

“Taking me in?” Bucky says, and the words are cold.  The Winter Soldier is written all over the hard lines of his face. 

“No.  Sam helped me look for you for a couple months after the helicarrier.  I thought he should know.”  

“Sam?” Bucky repeats, the harshness disappearing from his face, replaced with confusion. 

“Codename Falcon.” 

“I tore his wing off,” Bucky says, but the words emerge flat and devoid of emotion. 

“Yeah, you did.  So you can see why he might not be too keen on trusting you.” 

Bucky nods and relaxes his posture.  “I – I’ve been-” he falls silent, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

“What’s wrong?” Steve presses.

“My arm.  Hurts.” 

“Do you know what’s wrong with it?”

Bucky shakes his head.  “Before, they would… tune it.  Some… machine.  I don’t know how it works.” 

“What do you need?” Steve asks.  He doesn’t like knowing that Bucky’s in pain. 

“A mechanic.”

 

**IV.**

Bucky’s first thought is that Tony Stark looks just like his father.  His second thought is of the sniper shot he placed through the window of a too-expensive car, killing its passengers.  He did not care about the inhabitants.  He did not care about their son.  The mission was to make the assassination look like a car crash.  The Winter Soldier did not fail missions. 

“I’m gonna be honest, Cap,” Stark says without looking up from where he’s working on a metal suit, “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be using the extremely useful and extraordinarily genius secret entrance I installed underneath our not-so-secret clubhouse.  Gives me chills.”  He flips up the welding visor he is wearing and his eyes come to rest on Bucky. 

“Tall, dark, and cybernetic?  You must be Sergeant Barnes.  I’m-”

“Tony Stark,” Bucky interrupts.  “I know who you are.” 

“Flattering,” Tony says.  “Even the half-dead perpetually frozen HYDRA assassin knows who I am.  JARVIS, start scanning the arm, will you?”

“Scan already in progress, sir,” comes a British voice, seemingly from the walls, and Bucky jumps. 

“It’s okay, Buck, just an AI,” Steve says.  “How’d you know we were here for the arm?” he asks Stark as he guides Bucky forward, one hand pressed against the small of his back. 

“Why else would you come and see me?  I’m the only certified genius mechanic in the area.  I know you don’t drop by for my, frankly, sparkling personality.” 

Steve huffs, and Bucky feels something emerge from his chest, something like –

“Buck, are you _laughing_?”

Bucky looks between Steve and Stark, whose faces are mirror images of shock and disbelief, and he can’t help it – it’s _funny_.  Their banter is funny. 

“Jeez, Barnes, is that the first time you’ve laughed in seventy years?” Stark asks, gesturing to a stool. 

Bucky sobers instantly.  “Maybe.  I don’t remember.” 

“Sorry,” Stark says, but he doesn’t sound apologetic at all.  “You this much of a wet blanket all the time?” 

And as Stark bends over to examine the arm, Bucky realizes –

“This is Stark technology.”  He knows his voice sounds panicked, knows his heart rate has picked up, knows it like he knows Howard Stark designed his arm, even if he can’t remember its installation. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, low and cautious.  “Tony’s just trying to help, okay?  He has no idea who made your arm-”

“Barnes is right,” Stark says, already buried in circuitry.  Steve looks around at him so fast, it’s a miracle he doesn’t get whiplash. 

“What?”

“It was all in the files Nat set free to the public,” Stark says, taking a screwdriver from a robot near his left elbow.  “Good ol’ dad.” 

“I killed him.” 

Stark freezes, and Steve seems to have stopped breathing. 

“Howard Stark was our friend, Buck,” Steve says, hand clenching painfully on Bucky’s flesh shoulder.  

“Not to the Winter Soldier.  He was just another target.” 

Stark resumes his work, reconnecting a set of nerves to their receptors.  Bucky’s arm flares with pain and an overwhelming amount of sensation, but he does not flinch. 

“After what he helped do to you,” Stark says quietly, “I can’t say he didn’t deserve it.  Can you make a fist?”

 

**V.**

They move into Avengers Tower. 

Stark, in his “infinite wisdom and with great foresight,” built floors for each of the members of their ragtag superhero team after the Battle of New York.  Each had been lavishly furnished by Pepper and there was a common space at the top of the tower, along with a shared workout facility and laboratory a few floors down.  Steve comes to understand why Bruce is so frequently at the Tower; the scientific facilities are top of the line. 

He and Bucky move into Steve’s floor, and although there are two bedrooms, they continue to use just the one.  As more of Bucky’s memories return, the nightmares get worse, but he seems more present.  SHIELD is monitoring him closely, and he goes to therapy once a week, which seems to be helping.  They even spar now and then, which ends less and less frequently with Bucky trying to crush Steve’s windpipe.  Steve counts it as a success.

Clint and Natasha return from some top-secret mission about two weeks after Steve and Bucky move in.  Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Bucky are all in the common area; Bruce is taking Bucky through a round of meditation while Tony and Steve argue about upgrades to Bucky’s arm. 

“No, Tony, you cannot give him a repulsor in the palm, good _God_ ,” Steve says, ready to pour himself a drink even though he knows he can’t get drunk. 

“But it would be great in a fight, think about all the damage he could do!”  

“Maybe,” Steve says, lowering his voice, “we should _ask_ him and see if he _wants_ to be in a fight.  He’s seen enough of war to last several lifetimes.” 

“Or we could hide missiles in the plating.  You know, I had some great-”

“I am _telling you_ , you _cannot-_ ”

The elevator opens.  Natasha and Clint stumble blindly over to the couch, clearly ready to collapse after what Steve can only assume must have been a killer debriefing, when Natasha just _stops_.

“James,” she breathes, and Steve realizes her eyes are fixed on Bucky. 

He watches as the lines of Bucky’s back, relaxed moments before, become stiff and wary. 

“Nat-” Steve begins, starting across the room in case he has to intervene.

“Natalia,” Bucky says.  When he turns, Steve recognizes the expression gracing Bucky’s face: it is the same one he saw when he rescued Bucky from Zola’s facility.  Wonder, sheer disbelief. 

“James,” she repeats, and then she is hugging Bucky, and Bucky is hugging her back. 

“I remember – I remember the Red Room,” Bucky whispers into her hair.  “I trained you.  Was that real?”

“Yes,” she says, and Steve thinks she might be crying.  He goes to stand next to Clint, who’s watching the exchange with a bemused, soft look on his face. 

Steve glances between Clint and Nat, and remembers the silver arrow that she wears around her neck.  “But I thought you two-”

“We are,” he says.  “They went through a lot together.  She wasn’t sure he could be healed.  I think – I think it reaffirms, in a way, her own experience.  That she’s not alone.” 

“She was never alone,” Steve says, thinking about Loki’s brainwashing, about Clint’s struggle to recover from its effects. 

“No,” Clint agrees.  “And he never was either.  You men out of time have to stick together, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve says as Natasha and Bucky retreat to another room, probably to catch up.  “Yeah, I guess we all do.” 

 

**+**

Stark is throwing a party, and Bucky is wearing a tuxedo for the first time since he can remember. 

He remembers a lot more now, after months of therapy, hundreds of conversations with Steve.  Remembers their tiny Brooklyn apartment, how Steve had looked when Bucky had left him at the Recruiting Office that night at the Expo.  Remembers dancing with girls, trying to get Steve a date.  Remembers the Howling Commandos, Dum Dum and Morita and the rest of them around a campfire in the countryside, struggling to keep warm.  Remembers falling, falling, waking up with a metal arm, the repeated sessions of electrotherapy designed to keep him placid.  Remembers the cryogenic coffin in which they would freeze him.  Remembers John F. Kennedy, a dozen Presidents of developing countries, remembers the CEOs and party leaders he peppered with bullets, slit with knives.  Remembers pointing his sniper at the car of Howard Stark.  Remembers feeling nothing as he walked away. 

Bucky remembers, but things still slip through the cracks. 

Neither he nor Steve are taking dates to the party, and he tries not to look too hard at the way Steve’s shoulders seem so broad in his suit, how much Bucky would love to undo his bow tie and drag him into a closet somewhere. 

Bucky remembers the Brooklyn docks, the bars that nobody talked about but everyone knew about.  Remembers that even if Steve had shown interest, Steve would definitely never show interest in Bucky.  They were best friends.  That was all. 

He still can’t help but look. 

“That suit is great on you,” Steve says as he approaches Bucky at the bar.  He orders a double scotch and Bucky gives him a look that asks, _what are you doing?  You can’t get drunk_. 

“I like the taste,” Steve says.  “Plus, these people are vultures.  I need to at least pretend I’m doing something.” 

“Everyone wants a minute of Captain America’s time,” Bucky says, rapping his knuckles on the counter.  The bartender brings him another vodka. 

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” Steve mutters, eyeing the glass with distaste. 

“Leftover programming from the Russians, probably,” Bucky says.  “They drink it like water.” 

Steve glares at him.  “Don’t joke like that, come on.” 

“What else do you want me to do, sulk and bitch about my tragic backstory?  Gotta laugh at it when I can, Stevie.” 

Steve blushes, hard.  “You never call me that anymore.” 

“Don’t you like it?” Bucky asks, suddenly unsure.  “I thought you used to like it.” 

“Yeah, I – I did,” Steve says, ducking his head.  “Only you got to call me that.” 

Bucky feels something warm and tight flare in his gut, and before he knows what he’s saying, the words are out of his mouth.  “Wanna dance?”

Steve glances over at him.  “Here, at this party?  You wanna dance with me?” 

“Why not?  I’m a great dancer.  I remember that, you know.” 

Steve laughs.  “All right, fine.”  He drains the rest of his scotch and Bucky tows him onto the dance floor, where they step to a simple waltz. 

“Not too scary, huh?” Bucky says, grinning up at Steve.  “You always used to say you couldn’t dance.” 

“Yeah, well, I had a lot of practice watching you,” Steve says, smiling.  “Guess I was just waiting.” 

“Waiting for what?” Bucky says absently. 

“For the right partner.” 

_He and Steve are dancing in a room off the bar; they can still hear the music but it’s background noise.  Nobody will ever know they are here – they are alone._

_“See, Stevie, it’s that easy.  You’ll be dancing with Peggy in no time.”  Bucky’s chest pangs with loss – he doesn’t want Steve to dance with Peggy, doesn’t want Steve looking at a dame.  He wants Steve to remain here, safe, in his arms.  He wants to lean up – and how weird was that, leaning up? – and kiss Steve, steal his breath away from him, claim him and make him Bucky’s._

_Steve had said he was searching for the right partner.  Bucky knows that, when Steve finds that partner, it’ll be over for him.  He’s never kept a girlfriend for long, never had anything real, never had a sweetheart back home, because all he’s ever wanted was Steve.  Steve in the dance halls, Steve, curled in his arms in a too-small bed with a broken heater.  Steve, his muscles near to bursting out of his shirt, rugged and dirty in his Captain America uniform.  Steve, fighting at his side._

_If he lost Steve, he would lose himself.  There’d be no more Bucky Barnes to hold on to, because everything he is, is wrapped up in Steve Rogers._

“Bucky?”  Steve is still guiding their dance, but Bucky has gone lax in his arms.  He shakes himself to dispel the memory, and breaks away. 

“I need – I need some air-”

He flees onto the balcony of their venue, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing waiter.  He wants to kick himself for being such an idiot. 

Of course.  Of course he had loved Steve, before.  And Steve hadn’t wanted him, even then. 

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice, from behind him.  Bucky turns slowly, only to find Steve a mere two feet away.  “What is it?  What did you see?”

“I loved you.  Real or not real?”

Steve goes completely still.  “Bucky, you never – you never loved me.  Not in that way.  Not in the way you’re thinking.” 

“But – I remember.  I remember dancing with you, in some bar in some town in the middle of nowhere.  Teaching you how to dance so you’d be good for Peggy.  And I – I remember.” 

“You were just a good guy, Buck,” Steve says, a sad smile on his face.  “A good friend.”

“But…” Bucky pauses.  “Then – you loved me.  Real or not real?”

Steve wrenches his gaze away from Bucky’s and looks at the ground. 

“Real.” The word is so soft, below a whisper and probably unable to be heard by any hearing that isn’t serum-enhanced. 

“You love me now.”  It is not a question. 

“Of course I do, Buck,” Steve says, still speaking to his shoes.  “How could I not?  It’s always been you.” 

“Stevie,” and Bucky’s voice cracks but he doesn’t care.  Steve finally looks up to meet his eyes, and Bucky gently reaches out with his flesh and bone hand, grasps the back of Steve’s neck. 

“Bucky, what are you doing?” Steve asks, and his words are fragile, like he’s not quite believing what he’s seeing is real. 

“What I should have done seventy years ago, you punk.” 

Bucky pulls him in for a kiss.  Their noses bump but eventually their lips meet and it’s the most natural thing in the world for their mouths to open, for their tongues to seek each other out.  It’s everything they’ve been doing since Bucky first pulled Brendan O’Brien off of sickly Steve Rogers in a back alley, since Bucky dragged himself into Steve’s apartment and didn’t fire his gun to kill his target.  It’s a promise and it ends too soon because Steve is pulling away, resting his forehead against Bucky’s, a smile on his lips. 

“Bucky, my god.  You are such a fucking _jerk_.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first marvel fic and it may be my last but any positive comments/kudos would be really appreciated! hope you all enjoyed reading it <3


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